Wednesday, November 30, 2016

I think I might have mentioned a time or two that we school year round. That means that as the Christmas trees are going up our school year is winding down. We are in the last throws of our current curriculum and it is time for me to start planning and budgeting for our new school year.

We have been using My Father's World curriculum for all of our children. While I love the curriculum and the approach it takes to include the entire family into the process it just is not going to work for our family moving forward. Put simply we were dropping too much of the curriculum from our daily lessons to make it worthwhile for our family. Our children found the multiple books each day for history to be too repetitive. We chose to do a different Bible study and need special needs programs for spelling and reading. That leaves us just completing the Story of the World text and the science assignments each week. Our daughters are begging to study chemistry next year so that would mean dropping everything from MFW but Story of the World. It makes zero sense to continue purchasing MFW for just one book.

So.....that left me to put together an entire years worth of curriculum from scratch. I admit it, I like this part!

History:
We have been enjoying the Story of the World texts so we will be continuing with the 4th volume and the PDF student sheets. $25 for all 5 children

Science:
As I mentioned our children very badly want to cover chemistry this year. I went on a search for a middle school chemistry program and initially found a $100 option. I kept looking and after going down the rabbit hole for a while I found this FREE middle school chemistry curriculum! I have had a look through it and am very pleased with the content. It is over 740 pages however so my printer is not pleased with me. $0 for oldest 2 children

Obviously middle school Chemistry is not going to work for my 1st graders and kindergartner. I have another FREE option for them as well. We are going to be watching our way through the Magic School Bus series on youtube! I found this wonderful free curriculum to go along with the episodes. It provides a break down of the lessons, gives ideas for experiments and projects, and discussion points. $0 for our 3 younger children

Math:Our oldest daughter is a year ahead of her peers and at 12 year old will be taking 2 years to complete Pre-Algebra. We have already purchased this curriculum and she has made it through the first 9 lessons. It is slow going but she has plenty of time to finish it before she turns 14.Our 10 year old will be finishing up with her multiplication mastery and moving on to division mastery this year. I feel confident enough in my own division abilities to teach her division without purchasing a curriculum. I have reviewed what material she needs to master by the time she is 11 years old and the toughest thing will be 4 digit division by a 2 digit number. After teaching Pre-Algebra I got this one down cold.
Next up are the soon to be 7 year old twins. They are just finishing up their kindergarten work and ready to get started on addition and subtraction. We have already begun some of this through board games and cooking so it is not completely new material. Again, I feel comfortable enough in my own addition and subtraction skills to teach this without a curriculum. If I can not teach a child how to add to 10 we have some serious problems.
Lastly we have our brand new Kindergartner. He will be working on learning his numbers, counting to 20, place values to 100, adding doubles, skip counting 2's 5's and 10's, telling time, etc. You know what I am going to say by now.... I got this one!$0 for all 5 children

Language ArtsI am not overly fond of teaching language arts. Just sooooo boring. It has to be done however so here we go!
The 12 year old will be finishing a 2 year grammar and writing program she began this year. She has been working her way through Applications of Grammar book 1 and Writing with Skill level 1 this year. The budgeting side of me appreciates curriculum that is used for more than one year. Her spelling workbook is through Apples & Pears. She is up to her 3rd workbook which we purchased as a complete set when we began the curriculum. Last up we have her reading program. She has developed an obsession with the Who Was series and I am going to introduce her to the I Survived series this year as well. As long as she is reading several chapters of nonfiction works each day I try not to get to nit picky on what she is reading.
Our 10 year old daughter has dyslexia and ADHD. As you can imagine this is not her favorite subject. For reading we are continuing with the Dancing Bears curriculum that we purchased several years ago. She is reading soooo much better these days but it is a constant push on my part to keep it moving. I encourage her to read a fun book as part of her school days as well. Spelling and writing comes from Apples & Pears workbook 2. She has started this workbook but we will be taking some time away from it to really drill the spelling words she has already covered before progressing to new words. We may have to just start back at the beginning and redo the entire workbook. Do NOT tell her that however!
The twins are moving right along with cvc words. They are loving the BOB books along with file folder reading games and reading puzzles. They are working their way through Horizon's 1st grade Phonics workbooks.
Last up we have our kindergartner. He will be using 3dinosaurs printable packs to master his ABC's and letter sounds this year. I have to say I love how simple this is when you get to the bottom of the list!$25 for all 5 children

I think that is everything.....of course we have the extracurricular activities that are not on this list. Art, drama, engineering, chicken club, gardening club, swim team, etc. Other than $60 for engineering class for our oldest daughter all of our extracurricular activities are FREE. I love this place!

So the budget minded side of me must wrap up with a breakdown of the costs for our new school year. All of our school supplies were given to us by a local Vietnam Veteran's group. I can NOT tell you how blessed we are to have these folks in our lives. They give so unselfishly every year to our entire homeschool community. I have not had to purchase a pencil or a notebook in years. We love them to pieces.

With a boxed curriculum it would have cost our family over $1,000 to homeschool this year. It was more but I stopped adding it all up because it game me an ulcer to see the number going so high.

My original plan for this year was $420. That was with purchasing retail science books, math books, magic school house dvd's, etc.

After going through some rabbit holes thanks to pinterest I brought in our new school year for a total of $50 for curriculum plus $60 for engineering class. I would have to say seeing a grand total of $110 is making me do a happy dance. We will probably need a new workbook here or there through the year. Usually by August they are getting close to being finished with their current workbooks. That could up the total by another $100 depending on which workbooks are needed. We however are ready to get started on our new school year!

Well....I am...the kids....not so much!

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

You may have noticed a reduction in the number of posts over the last few months. I have made the decision to stop contributing to the School House Review Crew. Not because I was unhappy with working with them but because I am finally happy with the curriculum options we have chosen for our children. I can be a bit of a magpie when it comes to school curriculum. Always looking for the newest and shiniest things to add to my collection. I have had to learn that it is best to just stick with what we are using as long as it is working for our family. So with that in mind it doesn't really make sense to keep reviewing new curriculum options.

Since I am not renewing my contract with School House for the new year there are a few other things that are changing as well. Number one will probably be the consistency with which I will be posting in the future. I am back to being a lone wolf blogger. I do intend to keep blogging at least for the foreseeable future. Will that be 5 times a month or 2 times a month? I have no idea. I like the idea of being able to blog about topics that interest me when I feel like talking about them. With that said I have no idea what will interest me in the coming months.

Another new aspect in our lives is that we are finally buying a farm....okay....more like a farmette. What might you ask is a farmette? Think homesteading on an acre of land in a subdivision. That sounds kind of weird right? We are purchasing a farmette in a remote subdivision in the middle of a state forest. There are two streets within the subdivision and then miles and miles of state forest before you find another human being. I have no idea why this one small pocket of land was excluded from the state forest but I am glad of what ever fluke worked in our favor.

The home we are purchasing is at the end of a dead end street and surrounded on three sides by the forest. The previous owners built a small barn on the property and put up all of the boundary fencing needed for small livestock. I am told they had goats and miniature horses.

We intend to put in a raised garden, an orchard, and raise chickens. I would like to go to a Master Bee Keeping class over the winter and begin a bee hive in the spring as well. Another few ideas floating around in my brain have to do with raising tilapia and mushrooms.

As you can imagine I see a lot more homesteading posts coming up in the future. This should be quite the adventure and I am looking forward to sharing it with y'all!

Friday, November 18, 2016

When I joined Facebook 7 years ago (gasp!) I was in a very different place in my life. Both geographically and figuratively. I was a new mom living on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I did not have any local friends and my husband worked five 12 hour shifts a week. When he was home he was exhausted and did not want to hear all about my day. The poor man just wanted to sleep. I really can't blame him......I don't do well without my down time either.

So there I was figuratively alone in the world. I could, and did, call my friends and family on the phone but people were busy and did not have time to talk with me every day.

I was so lonely.

I had previously refused to sign up for a Facebook account out of sheer orneriness. I was not going to do something just because the masses were doing it. I am still that way to this day. If everyone in the world is obsessed with a book, tv series, or app I purposely refuse to take part. Of course I will then "discover" this amazing thing several years after it has gone out of vogue. I am just ornery like that.

Anyways I had held strong and refused to sign up for Facebook. That is until the one person I knew on the island, my husband, got sent on a deployment. Now here I am totally and completely alone with our two very young children.

I was bored out of my mind. This is coincidentally when this blog was started as well. Boredom will apparently lead me to all sorts of new things. On a whim I signed up for Facebook and it soon because an obsessive situation.

You know what I am talking about. You have to check the site 50 times a day because you MIGHT miss some fascinating piece of information. Of course everyone will want to see those 50 pictures you took at the park while you are at it. While we are at it might as well post what we are having for dinner. This was all before we even owned a smartphone. In my true lone wolf fashion I refused to own a smartphone until years after they had become popular. I did not get my first smartphone until 2014. That of course blew the Facebook obsession out of the water.

I can now check Facebook anywhere? Anytime? I can upload pictures immediately? I know there are many many people out there who have a Facebook account and never use it. Those that can limit their time to just a few times a week. I was not one of those people.

A few months ago I came to the realization that it had been months since I had actually seen anything interesting on Facebook. Anything life altering that happened in my life was relayed via phone calls from friends and loved ones. I no longer needed Facebook to fill some void in my life. We had moved to New Jersey and I had found an amazing homeschool community to become involved in. We had added four more children to our lives and we were crazy busy with school work, sports, and classes. I was no longer lonely and alone on a rock in the middle of the Pacific.

So why did I keep checking that stupid app 5 times a day?

Why if I am not seeing anything important or life altering on the site did I keep using it?

I turned all of my notifications off in an attempt to stop my interest in the site. After all no little red numbers calling my name then no need to check in right? Wrong. I still felt I might "miss something" so I would still check the app religiously and then spend countless time scrolling through what was for the most part adds and random stuff that did not interest me.

I made the decision to cut the cord and delete my Facebook account. The problem was that I did need to still be able to stay connected to our homeschool group. They only communicate via Facebook. I reached a standstill. I made the difficult decision to "unfriend" all of my friends and just leave the account open to the one group.

There is something about "unfriending" people that can hit a nerve. I really wish they would call it something else. These people are still my friends and I still want to hear from all of them. I just can not have Facebook in my life anymore. I did leave my blog Facebook page open so that I could share pictures of what we are up to as a family. Not having any friend's on Facebook makes it a lot easier to step away from the app once I have checked the group messages and made note of any upcoming classes or homework.

The first week without Facebook was so freeing to me. I just felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. The second week was just as relaxing. I no longer worry that I am missing something vital. You would think that would bother me more now that I have no access to friends pages. Just the opposite happened however. Leaving Facebook was the right decision for me at this point in my life. Will it continue to be the right decision for me? That will depend on how life changes over time. I may find myself lonely and in need of human companionship again in the future. I have definitely learned never to say never.

We are currently studying the colonization of America through to the Deceleration of Independence and the election of our first President. With this, and our love of food, in mind we were thrilled to learn that Homeschool Legacy had a Once-a-Week Micro-Studies Cooking Up History! This 4 week micro unit study covers George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison! I could not have picked a more perfect unit study to go along with our current history program!

So what exactly is a Once-a-week Micro-Study? The Cooking Up History with the Founding Presidents micro-study consists of 4 weeks of 30 min long lessons covering the biography of each president, pertinent historical and governmental information concerning their presidency, a brief language arts section with vocabulary or writing assignments, and of course a section sharing information concerning their favorite meals.

I love that all of the information needed for the unit study is compiled for the reader. No need to go to the library to find specific books on each president. No searching the internet for recipes. You just have to print the pages off and start. So simple! With six children currently "doing school" I definitely need something that is low maintenance and user friendly. This unit study fits the bill! The information presented was well written and easy for my children, 12 to 6yrs old, to understand and digest. For the Presidents we had already covered it was a good review of the information we had already covered. For the Presidents we have yet to cover it was a great introduction to the material that they will be covering in the future. Of course the addition of cherry pie, ice cream, and other yummy treats as part of their school work was a massive hit. We did appreciate switching from Oyster ice cream (Dolley Madison's favorite flavor) to Thomas Jefferson's Vanilla ice cream! I don't think we would have been game for Oyster ice cream!

We have used Homeschool Legacy's Once-a-week Unit studies before and knew we were going to be receiving a wonderful product. I was not disappointed! I would recommend their Once-a-week Micro-Studies to anyone who is interested in adding a bit more depth to their current curriculum!

Homeschool Legacy was very generous and gave the Homeschool Review Crew more than just ONE Once-a-week study to review! They very generously gave the review crew members a choice of the units below to review!